by Syd Moore
Monty came in anyway at that point and said, ‘I have to terminate this call. I’m aware you haven’t delivered your background research into the templar aspects, but Sam you can mail me.’
‘Templar aspects?’ I said. But Monty had already gone.
‘The knights,’ Sam said. ‘I presume he wants to hear about what we’ve learnt. Did you tell him about the missing bod … oh no,’ he said suddenly, catching something in the rear-view mirror. ‘Dearie me,’ he said. Then to my amazement, he leant towards me. ‘Rosie, kiss me. Kiss me now.’
Oh my god.
For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I was too overwhelmed by the words that had just popped out of his mouth. You just couldn’t tell with some blokes could you?
I could feel the heat rushing to my cheeks. ‘Well this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but …’
He reached over and put his hand behind my head. ‘Now! Quick!’
It wasn’t the right time. It wasn’t the right place. But how could I ignore such a desperate plea.
My mouth twitched and puckered on his. Awkwardly at first, then as the sensation of his fleshy lips pressed into mine a gorgeous tremor passed through them, down my body, to my feet then up again. I was so surprised by it that I let out a little gasp.
‘Oh Sam,’ I said breathily and closed my eyes, waiting to feel his tongue wiggle through my pearly whites and onto mine.
But it didn’t.
In fact his lips stayed shut and didn’t move much.
I opened one eye and saw that his were open too.
Which wasn’t very romantic.
And was, to be honest, a bit bloody odd!
Yet I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I was going to get my lips round it and snog it. Without coming up for air, I got hold of the loose fabric at the front of his shirt and pulled him closer to me.
He made an ‘oof’ noise and I felt resistance pull at the cotton in my hand just as a hard rap sounded on the window.
I started, broke off minimally, regretted it then immediately tried to get back in there.
But the knocker, whoever the hell it was, persisted, the raps coming hard and fast with four very firm knocks.
I sucked down a gulp of air and shouted over, ‘Sod off.’
Sam completely leant back and turned round. ‘Oh dear,’ he said with artificial animation and wound the window down.
There was a black jacket-clad torso right outside. A black jacket-clad torso in an additional padded vest. With a walkie talkie and a blue badge which read ‘Police’.
Brilliant.
I leant forwards and watched as said torso bent double and a chunky-looking man in a peaked cap leant into the car. He had an astonishingly tidy ginger beard and very blue eyes which immediately clapped on to us and narrowed.
Instead of ‘What’s all this going on here then?’ he simply stated, ‘Damebury Parish Council has a zero-tolerance policy towards any incidence of dogging.’
‘Dogging?’ I spluttered.
‘We haven’t even got a dog,’ said Sam with indignance.
Bless him.
A lift in one corner of his mouth was the only hint of amusement in Tidy Beard’s delivery. ‘I see you have made an attempt to conceal the vehicle but I’m afraid we do checks on this area regularly, it being popular with the local dogging community.’
‘We’re not dogging!’ I announced with emphasis on the last word.
‘We were snogging,’ said Sam. ‘Up Lovers Lane.’
He sounded so old-fashioned that I started to laugh.
And it seemed infectious too because Sam immediately juddered and snorted.
‘You may find this a laughing matter,’ said PC Tidy Beard. ‘But used condoms can present a formidable threat to local wildlife.’
‘Ew. That’s disgusting,’ I said, the passion that had been aroused just moments since wilting very fast indeed.
‘Your number plate has been noted,’ the constable went on. ‘Now if you’d like to move on, we’ll say no more.’
If that was the offer, we were up for taking it. Sam put his foot on the accelerator.
We were out of there faster than you could say ‘indecent exposure’.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Hmm,’ Scrub grunted when we located her. She had still not moved from the tiny office in The Griffin. ‘Someone told me the Wurzels had arrived.’
‘Wurzels?’ Sam asked, as he slung his bag on the floor and parked his nice fit derriere on a filing cabinet resting against the wall.
She eyed us cautiously. ‘Apparently you just turned up in a vehicle resembling a very small combine harvester.’
There was nowhere to sit so I moved a paper waste bin aside and got onto the floor. ‘In our line of work we sometimes have to be inventive when it comes to covert operations.’ Oh I liked that, it made me sound very agenty indeed.
Scrub, as usual, wasn’t impressed. ‘Is that what you call it these days?’ she said with a cheeky grin.
I was assuming this was merely her dry humour in play here. It was doubtful, with her eyes and ears on the situation at Ratchette Hall, that she would have been informed about the ‘dogging’ incident on Damebury Common. But, anyway, I didn’t think the policeman would have bothered to ring it in. After all, we had not been required to submit our names and had been super speedy complying with Tidy Beard’s instructions and legging it out of there as quickly as we possibly could.
Not that we had anything to do with dogging, an activity that I’d had to explain to my colleague and which had caused him to go pink around the ears and then vehemently deny attempting any such behaviour with me. He also went to great lengths to apologise for the earlier kiss, telling me he’d sighted the officer in the mirror and thought he might be put off from approaching the car if we looked like ‘a young couple enjoying themselves on Lovers Lane’. Honestly, the way he spoke sometimes – it was like keeping company with the 1950s. Needless to say, the rest of the journey back to the pub had ranged from awkward to hyper-conscious of each other, then when we remembered we hadn’t taken any of the ‘camouflage’ off we had a bit of a giggle. Despite the fact we had attracted quite a few glances on our way back from our ‘covert operation’, I was pleased that the greenery had diffused the tension between us.
Personally however, I was experiencing a mild form of post-traumatic stress via some uncomfortable flashbacks to my ‘Oh Sam’ moment. This meant that every so often, I was overtaken with an unbearable urge to cringe. Physically.
Whilst I was sitting on the upturned waste paper basket I experienced another one, which shook itself from my stomach to my chin and made me murmur, ‘Weurgh.’
‘You all right?’ asked Scrub, swinging round on her chair to survey me from above.
Sam eyed me carefully.
‘Yeah,’ I lied. ‘Just thinking about snakes.’
Trouser snakes.
‘For god’s sake,’ my inner voice chided me.
‘Indeed,’ Scrub said and stuck out her legs. I focused on her trousers instead, which were navy blue and wide-legged. Officer worker uniform. They had a bit of stretch in them, but looked quite unbreathable to me. I’d say there was a high mix of polyester in that weave. You could tell from the shine. I preferred something a bit airier. Maybe that’s why Scrub got grumpy a lot: sweaty groins were no one’s idea of fun. I would suggest a mix that was heavier on the cotton. At some point in the future. When she wasn’t scowling at me.
‘There have been developments,’ she said. ‘Which I am prepared to share with you, if you can tell me what you know about the residents. My officers have taken down statements from each of them but we would appreciate your input,’ which in Scrub-speak meant ‘prepare for interrogation’.
Both Sam and I grunted agreements – all resistance was futile anyway.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Right, well first things first. The ME.’
‘Who?’ said Sam.
Scrub sighed. ‘Kitty.’ Even I knew tha
t one.
‘Medical examiner,’ I reiterated. It was like he’d never seen Silent Witness.
‘Oh right, yes?’
The sergeant crossed her hands across her stomach and leant back. ‘The medical examiner, Kitty Wakeman – have you met her?’
I thought back to the time in the Seven Stars pub when we had been introduced to three forensic officers. One was Chloe Brown, who now volunteered at the Witch Museum from time to time. The other two I couldn’t remember.
Sam shrugged. ‘Should we? Did she work on the Witch Pit?’
Scrub shook her head. ‘No, I think she was in Madeira then. Anyway, Kitty says, on first inspection, she doesn’t think the puncture marks come from a snake bite.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘It looked like that.’
‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘Not unless it’s a snake with uneven fangs and a very wide smile.’
‘What else has that wide a bite mark?’ Sam asked and scratched his scalp above his ear.
‘A small vampire?’ I said and then wished I hadn’t.
I got a look off Sue, who rolled her eyes and said, ‘She’s inclined to believe it’s a human being.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘One with fangs?’
The sergeant gave me another one of her glares. ‘With a hypodermic.’
Ah right, I thought. That figured. There was a little part of me however that kind of liked the idea of a vampire.
‘Ohhhh,’ I said, after a few seconds of rumination. ‘So he was injected with poison?’
‘Kitty’s not confirming anything officially until we get the toxicology back from the lab, but she surmised that a sedative was most likely to have been used to overpower someone of Mr Sutcliffe’s size. Possibly this was followed up by a lethal injection.’
‘Wow,’ said Sam. ‘But there was an escaped python reported on the BBC, wasn’t there?’
Scrub nodded. ‘Oh yes. We’ve been in touch with the zoo. The missing python is back in its quarters. The director thinks she must have found a way out of her cage. Possibly went exploring, but then finding the environment hostile or confusing, decided to call it a day and bugger off back home.’
I leant against the wall and pushed myself up into standing position. All this talk of escaping snakes made me feel vulnerable down there. ‘I guess it sounds more feasible than slithering all the way over here, biting Cullen and then, mission accomplished, returning home.’
‘Agreed,’ said the sergeant. ‘Although losing snakes isn’t brilliant PR. You can see why they might want to play that down.’
Sam seemed to have been thinking this over for a while. ‘Would a python really be able to go out of its environment then find its way back?’
But my mind was running along different lines. ‘A lethal injection means poison, right?’ I said quietly. ‘Laura wrote a story about poison and snakes. It was a fantastically plotted and devious murder apparently.’ Nobody was listening. ‘The Eden Tree.’
‘Never underestimate the coldblooded brain,’ said Scrub. ‘Did you hear about that octopus in New Zealand?’
‘Octopuses aren’t reptiles,’ I said. Although I didn’t know how I knew this.
Once again Scrub failed to register my comment and carried on addressing her comments to Sam, who was proving a receptive audience. ‘They reckoned he climbed to the top of his tank when someone left the lid open, went down the side and travelled across the floor of the aquarium then squeezed into a fifty-metre-long drainpipe which led into the ocean.’
‘And freedom,’ Sam added. ‘I do remember that. They are very intelligent creatures. An octopus typically has nine brains. And possibly the Kraken legend is based on the beast. It’s a legendary sea monster of giant size sighted off the coast of Norway and Greenland.’ He smiled at me and continued. ‘Destructive and sometimes cunning. Can we say the same of snakes?’
I sighed. ‘Well, I reckon all of them, tentacles or not, are unlikely to have picked up a syringe and stuck it in Cullen’s neck.’
‘Indeed,’ said Sam. Scrub nodded too.
There was something else still bugging me though, ‘But the snake went missing yesterday. On the same day that the workshop, “Chris Devlin’s ‘Greatest Fears’” had been scheduled to take place. Again, there is a discussion of fears, which ups the ante. But we know now, that the snake was already missing. However, if someone wanted to scare Cullen, they knew his anxiety would be heightened if he’d already been talking about his greatest fear.’
Scrub sat up straight and took a notebook off the desk. ‘It would definitely suggest research and planning. Who told you that the snake was missing?’
I thought back to the workshop. Oh yes, of course. ‘Nicholas Blackman,’ I told her. ‘He announced it to everyone at the same time.’
Picking up a biro, she sighed. ‘Come on then. Let’s start with him. What’s he like?’
‘Total sod,’ I told her.
‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ she said.
I gestured to Sam for his laptop, got back on the floor, now we were pretty sure no snakes had been involved. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘There was a possibility his mother was murdered. Guns.’
When we later emerged from the office, it was with Scrub’s blessing that we should spend a night at Ratchette Hall and covertly record any happenings. We were good with covert stuff after all.
Apparently, the sergeant’s decision carried more weight than any objections Sophia and the Write Retreat directors might have. Scrub even declared she’d inform the events organiser herself. I couldn’t see that being a very fluid nor easy conversation and was very glad I wasn’t going to witness it. But then Scrub could be persuasive and she was grateful for our information and the timeline.
The Hall, we learnt, was open again and receiving visitors, having been given the all-clear by ‘Fang Control’ or whatever department was responsible for making sure there were zero snakes in the vicinity.
Apparently a group of writers, Laura, Jocelyn, Robin, Margot and Imogen, had gone for a walk. Starla and Tabby had returned to the Hall. We had passed Chris Devlin and Nicholas on the way out of The Griffin. It would be fair to say they appeared to have been taking advantage of the day-long lock-in and were talking very loudly in a manner that was quite raucous indeed. They had invited us over for a drink and an arm wrestle, but we informed them we had a report to file, as tempting as a test of strength might sound, and promised to see them at dinner. This gave us a couple of hours to creep around the house and set up cameras.
In the event, dinner turned out to be a rather subdued affair, back in the breakfast room/kitchen again. I suppose it was to be expected given the circumstances. Sophia and Starla had lit lots of candles. Some were aromatherapeutic, allegedly designed to lift our spirits. The air was filled with the cosy nurturing smells of sandalwood, nutmeg and then one vegetarian and one beef cottage pie.
Chris toasted absent friends, and a fair few bottles of wine were imbibed. I had a couple of glasses myself despite Sam’s admonishing looks. Starla lamented the fact that none of them were able to leave ‘this temple of death’. Scrub had told them they needed to be on hand for a while.
Laura agreed with Starla.
Margot said the circumstances were awful but she was getting a lot out of the course and brushed her elbow against Devlin’s.
Nicholas agreed with Margot, for once. Tabby muttered something about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, then Imogen announced there were people outside who were knocking on the window.
Nicholas and Jocelyn went to check but there was nobody there.
Tabby tactfully moved Imogen’s half-empty wine glass away and suggested she have an early night.
Robin got to his feet and staggered after them, announcing, ‘Ah’m gonna go with them too. Upshtairs.’ There was a distinct slur to his voice so nobody dissented.
Everyone else then decided to retire to the day room for after-dinner drinks, so Sam and I made a big thing about ‘leaving’ and
withdrew to the study, which was to be our HQ for the night.
The set-up in there was unlike other stake-outs I’d done. Largely because the house was so big and the grounds so sprawling Sam had digitally linked the cameras to laptops which he told me we had to constantly monitor.
There was no talk of dogging or snogging, just a clinical explanation of which camera was focused where, and instructions, as I’d come to expect, to note down anything that was usual or unusual. Sam said he’d kip for the first part of the evening so I could sleep in the latter half.
I watched him try to make himself comfortable on the chaise longue. He was quite tall though and his long legs sprawled over the end. I pulled the leather chair over and lifted his feet onto it. We hadn’t brought sleeping bags so he had to make do with the woolly fleece that was draped over the armchair. In the end though he must have managed to get some Zs in because he started snoring lightly.
I amused myself watching him for a while then monitored the screens for a bit, noting down when everyone went to bed. Then I got bored and decided to go and help myself to a very small shot of whisky. Sam was zonko so wouldn’t notice. Plus, I had a bit of a taste for it after the wine. I told myself I would only have one, which considering the amount my friend Cerise and I put away on a girls’ night out, was pretty minimal so I didn’t think it’d be a problem.
After several excursions, worrying that Sam might notice my absence, I located the scotch in the bar in the sitting room. It was contained within a bloody expensive-looking Bohemian crystal decanter, which I hadn’t noticed before. There was a collection of shot glasses on one of the shelves so I helped myself and looked out the window into the garden as I sipped my drink, which made me feel like I wasn’t slacking.
When I’d finished, I returned to the study, took up position behind the desk and sat with my head in my hands watching the screens.
There were four in total. One was pointing at the stairs in the hallway. Anybody going upstairs, out of the door or between the day room, kitchen, study where we were, sitting room or seminar room would be picked up. They’d also have to be very thin and very cunning to avoid being filmed if they were to exit via the front door.
